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Henderson V. FitzBelmont
| birth= Late century | death= | cause of death= | occupation= , |type of appearance = Direct|professional affiliations = Washington University}}Henderson V. FitzBelmont (d. 1945?) was a physicist at Washington University in Lexington, Virginia. He over saw the Confederate States' superbomb project during the Second Great War, successfully completing the first bomb deployed in North America. In 1941, as the Second Great War was breaking out, FitzBelmont proposed a project to research and build a uranium bomb to Confederate President Jake Featherston. Featherston refused to support the substantial resource allocations FitzBelmont requested because the physicist could not guarantee the success of the project. Moreover, based on his prior dealings with scientists since becoming president, Featherston suspected FitzBelmont of seeking money for an expansive research project that would enhance FitzBelmont's academic standing without benefiting the country's war efforts. Featherston's mistrust of FizBelmont's motives had a strategic effect on the history of the Confederacy and the entire world, delaying by a crucial year the Confederate superbomb project. A year later, however, Clarence Potter found intelligence that the United States was working on a secret project in Washington State. FitzBelmont was asked to examine aerial photographs Potter had obtained and confirmed that the U.S. was working on its own uranium bomb. Given this, FitzBelmont met again with Featherston and this time convinced the President to fund his project. FitzBelmont was a Confederate patriot and supported the war the against the United States. However, privately he was bitterly opposed to the Freedom Party, a sentiment he confided in Potter. FitzBelmont also, like many people, found Featherston intimidating. However, by reminding Featherston that the CS's atomic project would be ahead of the US's had he been granted funding in 1941 instead of 1942, he became one of very few people in the world to whom Featherston ever admitted having made a mistake. Against long odds, including constant bombing by the U.S., and with the help of British research, FitzBelmont was able to build a working uranium bomb. In 1944, as the Confederacy was in what proved to be its deaththroes, General Clarence Potter snuck that bomb into the outskirts of the U.S. capital of Philadelphia. FitzBelmont wasn't able to build another one before the whole of Virginia fell to the United States. FitzBelmont was captured and interrogated for several months by General Abner Dowling before being released. He planned to resume his professorship, but in a conversation with Dowling, General John Abell said that FitzBelmont's existence could be dangerous, and suggested the possibility that FitzBelmont might meet with an "unfortunate accident". This was mainly to prevent his falling into the hands of the Japanese or Russians and being forced to build bombs for them. Literary Comment The ruthless efficiency of the U.S. suggests that FitzBelmont would have been killed in 1945, but the story never actually says this happened, so there is room for doubt. FitzBelmont's attempts to warn Featherston are similar to Soviet physicist Georgi Flerov's successful efforts to induce Joseph Stalin to begin an atomic bomb project for the USSR. Category:POWs of the Second Great War